Chapter 28
Coast POV
The glare from three television camera rigs bounced off the polished press table, burning hot against the bridge of my nose.
"Coast, Rick Miller from the Boston Globe," a reporter called out from the third row, shoving a micro-recorder forward.
"There are reports out of Alberta that Calgary’s front office offered a first-round pick to Boston for your signing rights.
Is your camp pushing for an immediate NHL roster spot in the West, or are you committed to the Bruins' farm system? "
A muscle beneath my left eye twitched.
I leaned into the cluster of microphones, my massive shoulders hunched slightly over the microphone stand. The skin across my knuckles was raw, the wrap around my bruised ribs biting into my intercostals every time my chest expanded.
"I don't have an agent," I rasped, keeping my voice in that flat, gravelly register that gave them nothing. "I don't have a camp. My rights belong to Boston until August fifteenth. I am playing for Garrison. Next question."
"Stuart, what about the ankle?" a freelance hockey blogger pressed from the aisle, his voice carrying an edge.
"You missed six weeks with a syndesmotic tear that usually sidelines players for the season.
The ECAC semifinal against Harvard is in forty-eight hours.
Are you skating on pain-masking injections, or is the joint actually structurally sound? "
A heavy, dangerous silence fell over the room.
My back teeth clamped together with a force that made the masseter muscle in my cheek jump in violent spasms. A thick vein along the right side of my neck stood out like a cord against the white collar of my team dress shirt.
The memory of the concrete tunnel yesterday afternoon—Arthur’s foul tobacco breath, his hand tapping my scar, his threat to bring reporters to Lake Placid—ripped through my skull with a savage, burning clarity.
"The joint was cleared on Tuesday by Director Thorne," I said, my gaze locking onto the blogger with a cold, unblinking intensity that made the man take half a step backward into his row.
"Ninety-eight point four percent bilateral force symmetry on optical force plates.
If Harvard wants to test the ankle along the boards on Saturday, they're welcome to try. Anything else?"
Nobody spoke.
Hayes reached over, tapping the microphone base with his knuckles. "That’s it for the captain. We’re on the ice for morning skate at seven."
* * *
Hayes didn't let me go to the locker room.
The moment we cleared the media double doors, his heavy hand clamped onto the back of my neck, steering me down the administrative corridor toward the sports medicine suite.
"Thorne’s office," Hayes muttered, his face grim. "Move."
The director’s office was quiet, but the air inside was sub-zero.
Director Aris Thorne sat behind his wide mahogany desk, his wire-rimmed glasses resting on top of a red-stamped manila dossier. Standing beside the filing cabinet, her wool overcoat buttoned to the neck, was Compliance Officer Corinne Vane.
Hayes shut the door, threw the interior latch, and leaned his back against the wood.
"What is this?" I asked, looking between them, my boots planted wide, my duffel hanging heavy from my left shoulder.
Vane stepped forward, tapping the dossier with a manicured fingernail. "At eleven-thirty this morning, an anonymous formal grievance was submitted to the university ethics hotline. It alleges gross administrative and medical misconduct regarding your rehabilitation protocol."
The concrete floor beneath my feet seemed to turn to thin ice.
"Be specific, Corinne," I rasped, the words coming out hard and flat.
"The report claims that your sixty-hour force-plate protocol in Sub-Level Two was conducted without faculty supervision," Vane said, her voice dripping with administrative venom.
"It claims that you used personal intimidation to coerce an undergraduate biomechanics fellow into falsifying kinetic recovery data, and that an illicit physical relationship exists between you and Miss Barry that compromises the integrity of her departmental signatures. "
My blood went cold as a frozen pond.
Arthur. Or Mercer. Or both of them, working the same poisoned shovel.
The urge to break something—to drive my fist through the oak door, to tear the filing cabinet off its hinges—ripped through my forearms, making my fingers curl into rigid, bloodless fists inside my coat pockets. The veins in my temples throbbed with a blinding, concussive pressure.
If an official compliance investigation was opened today, NCAA Bylaw 10 required immediate provisional suspension pending administrative review.
I would be benched for Saturday’s semifinal against Harvard. I would be benched for the championship game on March 14. Boston’s front office would flag my profile for character volatility; and the university would revoke Tallulah’s senior fellowship waiver before the week was out.
"The protocol was conducted according to Thorne's written parameters," I said, stepping toward Vane, my height casting a shadow that blotted out the light from the desk lamp.
"Every single test run was recorded on the multi-axis sensor track. The raw telemetry was uploaded to the national clearinghouse server under Thorne’s departmental license.
You have the timestamps. You have the force curves. "
"The raw files are on the Sub-Level Two local console," Thorne intervened, his voice weary but steady. "I reviewed the longitudinal dataset myself yesterday morning, Corinne. The recovery is medically authentic. Miss Barry’s analysis was brilliant. There was no coercion."
"The ethics board doesn't care about force curves, Aris," Vane countered, looking up into my face with an unyielding, bureaucratic stare.
"They care about institutional liability.
If there is a personal relationship between a high-profile NHL draft prospect and the student evaluating his clearance, the entire athletic department is exposed to federal Title IX scrutiny. "
She paused, letting the silence hang between us like an executioner’s blade.
"I have not opened an official inquiry yet," Vane said, her voice dropping.
"I gave Coach Hayes until five o'clock on Monday to produce the complete, unredacted digital audit from the Sub-Two console, including the security keycard logs. If those files show any discrepancy—any clerical gap—Stuart is suspended for the tournament. And Miss Barry’s fellowship is terminated. "
"She has nothing to do with this," I growled, the gravel in my voice vibrating with a lethal, desperate edge.
"She signed the clearance, Coast," Hayes barked from the door, his jaw tight. "She’s in the blast radius. Now get out of this office and let me handle the board."
* * *
I hit the cold Adirondack air outside the south loading bay like a man breaking through surface ice.
The dusk was freezing, a bitter, biting wind howling down from the high peaks, whipping loose snow across the asphalt lot. My lungs burned as I hauled air past my teeth, my knuckles white where they gripped the strap of my bag, my mind a screaming red spiral of fury and terror.
They were coming for her.
Arthur had put her name on the paper, and Mercer was holding the match.
I reached the black Ford truck parked beneath the flickering amber security lamp, my hand reaching for the driver's door handle.
Then I stopped.
Standing beside the passenger side, huddled deep inside her oversized olive-green winter coat, was Tallulah.
She had her heavy waxed cotton messenger bag clutched tightly against her chest with both arms, her shoulders hunched against the biting gale.
Her dark hair was whipped across her face by the wind, but beneath the strands, her skin was paper-white, her high cheekbones hollowed out by an exhaustion that made my sternum ache with sudden, violent tenderness.
Her right hand was tucked beneath her coat, resting flat and unmoving over her lower abdomen.
The rage in my blood didn't fade; it collapsed, instantly replaced by an unyielding, ferocious need to shield her from the storm.
I didn't ask why she hadn't stayed in bed. I didn't care about the compliance memo.
I crossed the ice in three strides, grabbed the passenger door handle, and hauled it open.
"Coast—" she started, her voice small, trembling in the sub-zero draft.
I didn't let her finish. I reached down, wrapped my arms around her waist, and lifted her off the pavement into the warm, leather interior of the truck.
I climbed in behind her, shutting the door against the wind with a heavy, concussive thud that sealed out the entire world.
The locks snapped shut.
Before she could adjust her coat, I reached across the center console, hooked my hands beneath her arms, and hauled her across the leather into my lap.
Tallulah let out a soft, startled gasp as her knees framed my hips, her small frame collapsing against my chest. Her boots dragged across the console, her hands instantly flying up to grip my neck, her fingers tangling in the hair at the base of my skull.
I buried my face in the crook of her neck.
I inhaled her. The sweet almond of her skin, the clean rain in her hair, the warm, fragile reality of her body pressed flat against my bruised ribs.
My arms clamped around her waist like twin bands of forged iron, holding her so tight her heartbeat slammed directly against mine through three layers of wool and cotton.
A ragged, broken breath tore from my throat, shuddering through my entire 228-pound frame.
"Stay right here," I rasped into her skin, my voice ruined, trembling with a raw, savage devotion that made my throat ache. "Good girl. Just let me hold you. Don't move."
Tallulah didn't pull away. She tightened her grip around my neck, her small face pressing into my cheek, her breath coming in quick, shallow hitches against my ear. Her right hand stayed resting flat against the front of her coat, pressed between our chests, right over the warmth of her stomach.
"Coast," she whispered, her voice fierce and soft against the dark cabin. "What's wrong? What happened in there?"
"Nothing," I lied, my lips pressing a desperate, burning kiss to the pulse point fluttering beneath her jaw. "Nothing touches you, Tallulah. I won't let anyone touch you."
I held her in the dim glow of the dashboard, my fingers digging hard into the fabric of her coat, my jaw locked into stone as the freezing night pressed against the glass.
I didn't know what Arthur was planning. I didn't know what Vane would find on that console.
All I knew was that I would burn this entire university to the ground, I would throw my name, my draft, and my life into the fire, before I let a single hand touch the woman breathing against my chest.